01 - Num6ers

Interesting stats or figures from the past week to put global issues in perspective

The number of people registered so far for the Huduma Number in Kenya. For each registration, the National Integrated Identity Management System (NIMS) will generate a unique identification number known as the Huduma Number which enables citizens to more easily apply for public services. Registration was slowed pending a High Court ruling last week.  The ruling allowed for the registration to continue, but mandated that no individual could be compelled to provide any information they did not wish to share, that DNA and GPS information was not to be collected, and that services could never be withheld based on this data. Let's see how implementation rolls out, but a strong precedent for data privacy rights in Kenya!

The 2018 net income of Saudi’s national petroleum and natural gas company. Published externally for the first time, this astounding financial performance confirms the state-run oil giant has been churning out remarkable revenues, their profit equal to the results from Apple, Google, & Exxon Mobil combined. Their cashflow however, is a different story, with the kingdom’s dependence on the company to finance social and military spending, as well as the lavish lifestyles of hundreds of princes.

02 - Beyond WEIRD

Trends in behavioral science in the Global South

A review of financial access in Kenya

Our quick takeaways:

• Previous disparities in access and usage (gender, rural / urban, income) are showing promising signs of equalizing.  
• Big jump in credit usage, largely driven by digital app lending (not surprising with the Tala / Branches of the world), but even more so by merchant credit.
• Really interesting table on preferences for non-use on page 32 that highlights the sensitivity in fees for mobile money, but not mobile banking. 
• Interesting to see how many people paying for insurance are doing so directly (57% among urban residents)
• Surprised to find that the highest priority for selecting a long-term savings device is on ease of access (rather than trust or reliability)
• Alarming figures on the overall financial health of adults (down from 39% in 2016 to 21% in 2019).
  • Important to caveat that they seem stable for a lot of important health outcomes (ability to buy medicine, not skipping meals, etc). 
  • The figures maps to public optimism, with 51% of people citing that they felt their financial status worsened since 2016.
• And lastly..... 19.7% of people view gambling as a good source of income!? 

03 - Links we liked

Recently published journals, papers, blog posts or just interesting articles we enjoyed reading

Loss aversion applied to politics

There is compelling evidence that happiness is positively correlated with political engagement but this fascinating new paper demonstrates how the two recent presidential elections have produced a net decrease in American happiness. 
 

Ethnic bias (as measured at Busara)

The first external lab study conducted at Busara has finally been published in the Journal of the European Economic Association.  This was one of our most complex studies to date, employing a variety of measures to try to understand ethnic polarization around the 2013 elections.  Contrary to popular belief, the researchers did not find strong ethnic bias leading up to the elections, and given the depth of measures can confidently declare this null result (which is still far too rare in published articles).

04 - Fresh from the lab

A quick output from the lab including pilot results, learnings from failures or fully-fledged studies ready for publication

Understanding agent networks

There is a common thread among our partners: the reliance on a network of agents to reach the desired population, particularly to enable last-mile delivery. We were curious to explore ways to increase the efficiency of these networks, especially in reaching rural women who remain to this day the least included. To do this, we ran an “Off The Record” as a first step to explore these questions from an experimental perspective - we are excited to explore this is more depth moving forwards!

Our research design was two-fold: we decided to explore the behavioral triggers of agents themselves: what are their motivations, how to incentivise them and what makes them successful? Then, we sought to better understand the context of rural women: are women harder to reach because agents are typically male? To what extent does agent gender lead to selectivity?

We ran interventions at different stages of the process: in inviting agents to join our study, and in improving their efficiency. While none of our treatments had an effect on agent effectiveness, we did find evidence that the gender of agents highly influences the gender of their recruits. As evidenced in the graph, women recruit more women, and men recruit more men.

Have a lovely week-end!